How to cut out 5am feed??

M

mummybee

Registered User
My daughter of 18 mths does not sleep through the night. She takes her last milk feed at 8.30pm, sleep at 9pm, and sometime between 4am-6am, she would wake without fail for a milk feed before sleeping immediately again till 8am. She naps once from 12.30 to 2pm.

I have successfully cut out her 11am and 2am feeds previously but this 5am feed seems like it is here to stay. I have tried for last 6 months to not go to her when she wakes and granted, she returns to sleep without her milk but would wake every 10 minutes or so to cry until she eventually wakes up fully to begin her day at 6am! I have also tried feeding her biscuits after dinner and do cluster feeds ie milk at 7.30pm then before bed so she takes total of 9oz milk before sleep to fill her up for the night. I was told she is waking out of habit not hunger but some nights I can literally hear her tummy growling and she would wolf down 5oz of milk in record time. I tried giving her 2-3oz diluted milk at 5am and this only creates more headache for me as she would wake at 7am for a second feed before sleeping till 8.30am.

I should also add that she still sometimes wakes twice to feed but thank God, those are rare nowadays.

Should I just resign myself to the fact that she is different from other babies who sleep through? I am just at a loss what else to try. I would dearly like to hear especially from mummies whose kid(s) have difficulties sleeping through and can I hope that my child will eventually cut out night feeds all by herself as she gets older?
 
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try offering her water or juice instead. i did this with my 2 year old. the first night was very difficult. he cried and cried and cried. the second night, he cried and cried. the third night, he cried and the fourth night he said, "no juice" and went back to sleep. now i give him his cup of juice and put it beside his bed so that if he wakes up he can get a drink by himself.

he still wakes up though, even if i dont give him the milk. i think it is a habit now.

good luck!
 
carang, I did try giving her water but she chokes so badly. In the end I give her very watered down milk which she takes but this doesn't solve the problem as she would wake me a second time at 6-7ish for a drink before sleeping till 8am. Wish I can leave watered down milk at the side for her to get herself without waking me!
 
HI, maybe you can try gradually cutting down the amount of milk by 1/2 an ounce each night until she doesn't need it anymore. I successfully cut down my daughter's 10 pm feed using this method. I read it from Gina Ford's "Contented Little Baby Book". Hope this helps. Good luck!
 
I believe only waking once at 5am is not too bad. Many people's babies and toddlers are up for the day around that time! As the mother of a 9 month old, I feel fantastic on the rare occasion that I get 6hrs unbroken sleep.

I would be grateful if she goes back to sleep quickly after feeding, and if you can go back to sleep too. Many mothers find they can't get back to sleep once it starts to get light, so if you don't have that problem you are doing well. (Eye blinds are good for that, as well as earplugs to mute the birdsong!)

Would you prefer that she wakes at 6am and was up for the day then, but then you could call it sleeping through the night? You would get less sleep.

Don't worry about the societal pressure to have a baby sleeping through the night. People are always asking me whether my baby is sleeping through the night, as if that was the sole criteria for judging good parenting! So long as you and the rest of your family are getting enough sleep, you are fine.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies, in particular JennyB. You are so right - last weekend I went to a party and little did I realise that many of the kiddies there, some older than my daughter, are still waking up at night for one feed, although when asked the first time, they would say their kids are sleeping through as they qualify sleeping through as sleeping from 9pm-6am. Guess I have to re-define my understanding of sleepthrough. Yeah, I don;'t fancy beginning the day at 6am and would much rathe wake for 5am feed then sleep till 8.30am than an early start. And I am generally a good sleeper myself so after the 5am feed my daughter would fall back asleep within the minute and it would take me less than 15 mins to return to dreamland till 8.30am. I was told I am blessed to be able to do that. It is just that I so love sleeping and back in the days when I didn't have a child I could and would sleep 14 hours straight.

having said that, I tried light crying it out method with my daughter for one night and ignoring her for the rest of the nights last week and believe it or not, she slept through in the true sense for three nights in a row, ie 9pm to 8am. I am realistic that this is not going to last forever...though I am ever hopeful....but at least I got my 11 hour uninterrupted sleep for a few nights to replenish my energy and refresh my soul.

Thanks again for your support and I do feel much better!
 
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